Well water in Red Springs
The town is named after what is in the water. That is not a figure of speech, and if you are on a well near here it is probably your problem too.
Why the town is called Red Springs
The name comes from the rust-coloured sediment left by iron and sulfur in the springs here. Those springs made the place: the Hotel Red Springs opened in 1852, people came for three-week convalescent stays in marble-lined tubs, and for a while it was called the Saratoga of the South. The water bubbles up from around half a mile down.
Iron and sulfur are still in the ground. Nobody is bathing in it for their health any more, but if your well draws from around here you may be looking at the same minerals in your kitchen sink.
What iron looks like in a house
- Orange or reddish-brown staining on sinks, baths, toilet bowls and anywhere water sits.
- Laundry coming out stained, whites turning rusty rather than grey, and bleach making it worse rather than better.
- A metallic taste, and coffee and tea tasting wrong.
- Slimy reddish sludge in the cistern or toilet tank, which is iron bacteria rather than iron itself and is treated differently.
What sulfur smells like
Rotten eggs. That is hydrogen sulfide, and where you smell it matters:
- Only the hot tap points at the water heater's anode rod rather than the well, and is a plumber's job.
- Both hot and cold points at the well or the groundwater itself.
- Coming and going can follow the water table, so it is often worse in some seasons than others.
Neither iron nor sulfur is generally a health hazard at the levels found in wells. They are a nuisance, an expensive one, and they wreck fixtures, appliances and laundry steadily rather than dramatically. The reason to test is that what fixes one makes the other worse if you guess.
What actually fixes each
- Low iron can go out through a water softener, which is cheap and is the right answer only at low levels.
- Higher iron needs oxidation and filtration, commonly aeration followed by a filter, because it has to be turned into something a filter can catch before a filter is any use.
- Iron bacteria is a living problem, not a mineral one, and needs shock chlorination rather than a filter. It is the same procedure used on a well after flooding. How shock chlorination works.
- Hydrogen sulfide is oxidation and filtration again, or a new anode rod if it really is only the hot side.
A test tells you which of those you have. Guessing means buying the wrong box, and these boxes are not cheap.
Common questions
Is the water safe if it stains everything?
Iron and sulfur at typical well levels are aesthetic problems rather than health ones. That is not the same as saying the water is safe: staining tells you nothing about bacteria or nitrate, which are the two that matter for health and neither of which you can see. Nitrate in wells around here.
Will a softener fix the smell?
Usually not. Softeners are built for hardness and handle only low iron, and they do not deal with hydrogen sulfide. A softener sold as the answer to a rotten-egg smell is generally the wrong box.
Is this because of the springs the town is named after?
Same minerals, same ground. The historic springs are artesian and come up from about half a mile down; your well is shallower and its own thing. But the iron and sulfur in this area's geology is why the town got its name and why your sink looks like that.
Sources: Town of Red Springs history and local reporting on the mineral springs and the Hotel Red Springs; standard water treatment guidance for iron, iron bacteria and hydrogen sulfide in private wells.